BlackBerry Z10 Jumps Off to a Record-Setting Start in Canada and U.K.

BlackBerry’s new Z10 smartphone is a record-setter — in two of the first markets in which it debuted, anyway.

BlackBerry said on Wednesday that the Canadian and U.K. launches of the Z10 have been the best of any of its handsets debuts in those regions ever.

“In Canada, yesterday was the best day ever for the first day of a launch of a new BlackBerry smartphone. In fact, it was more than 50 percent better than any other launch day in our history in Canada,” BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement sent to AllThingsD. “In the U.K., we have seen close to three times our best performance ever for the first week of sales for a BlackBerry smartphone.”

The company declined to provide any hard sales numbers. And while we tried to dig up some old metrics from which to extrapolate, we have so far been unsuccessful. If those numbers exist somewhere outside of Waterloo, we haven’t been able to find them. In other words, early Z10 sales are much better than some numbers BlackBerry isn’t quantifying.

Still, BlackBerry’s announcement does lend further credence to preliminary reports of strong demand for the Z10 in the U.K. As we noted earlier this week, retail channel checks conducted following the device’s launch last week returned encouraging results, with some vendors reporting sell-outs, lines and other signs of strong demand.

Caveat: As I’ve noted before, strong early demand doesn’t always translate into solid sustainable demand. And it’s important to remember that Canada and the U.K. are two of BlackBerry’s largest markets, with a very loyal user base. Heavy buzz there doesn’t guarantee heavy buzz everywhere.

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